Arabic is spoken by nearly 530 million people worldwide, so where in the world are they all hiding? You see, to most Americans Arabic is as foreign a language as any language could ever possibly be. The letters, the pronunciations, the way it is read and written, and even the culture is so different than what most westerners or Americans have ever come across that it tends to be shocking, but only at first.

Despite the seeming arbitrary nature of the Arabic language and culture it is extremely rich in beauty and history. I hope that in the next few articles that I write here I can shed some light on the Arabic language, it's past, and where I think it is headed.

Let's start by understanding that Arabic is a Semitic language, like Aramaic, and Hebrew, but they are all very different and utilize different alphabets. Like I said earlier, about 350 million people worldwide speak Arabic as either there first or second language and the majority of those live in the Middle East and North Africa. All of these people speak different varietes of Arabic and they are too varied to even begin to get into. So for time and simplicity's sake I will note the more relevant ones used today. Classical Arabic is the type that you can find in the Qur'an, other early Islamic literature like the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and poetry going back further than the 7th century. Modern Standard Arabic is the standard language used today, the only official form of Arabic recognized by the United Nations and what you would be taught if you went to school to learn it today. MSA is used in television, books, radio, newspapers, political speeches, and every other sort of social medium today.

If you are truly serious about learning Arabic, before trying to speak Arabic you might want to try and learn Arabic script. It seems almost impossible at first and because of that many try and rely on transliterations instead of putting in the time and hard work but you know the old saying, "El vago trabaja doble", actually that's a Spanish saying, but it works here because what it means is that "the lazy person ends up working twice as hard." Why? Well in this case if you rely on transliterations it will only cause you more problems later on trying to unlearn all the bad stuff.

Don't try and learn the alphabet "A to Z" as you would do in English, try just a few letters at a time for maybe two or three weeks or until you are sure that you have it down. Make sure that when you write it you are also sounding out the letter at the same time. Then once you are confident with Arabic Script move on to the harder stuff. I recommend that you don't go out and buy a big and expensive course right away unless you are absolutely sure that this is something that you want to learn. It's better to start off small and once you are positive then feel free to invest a larger sum, don't throw away good money.

A small book like Easy Arabic Script will be just fine to start off with. But I know some of you just have to have it all, so here is an excellent but inexpensive course that offers the best of both worlds by breaking it all down into 10 simple categories so you can take small bites at a time and still learn at your own pace without draining your pockets and overwhelming yourself.

With this option, even if you decide that Arabic is not for you, your investment will still be very minimal, actually the script book is almost as much as the course I believe. Either way, I'm just giving you choices, do with them what you will. Here's the course link